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“Hey? Are you okay? What’s wrong?” Rudra comes over to me and cups my face, but I just pull away from him because even his touch makes me feel I am cheating on him.
“I am fine. Just tired.”
“Again?” he sighs. “You left the office early today. Had any other work to do?”
I left early to meet Aarav but he doesn't need to know that yet.
“Yes. Can I just shower? I need a shower badly.”
“Sure.”
As I make my way to the stairs, I stop and turn around only to find Rudra staring at me still. Obviously, he senses my discomfort.
“I have decided,” I say, “I am not working on the AR Group project anymore.”
He looks a bit surprised at first and then delighted.
“Thank God you took that decision.”
I smile back.
“I had to. Just doesn't feel right.”
He agrees.
“I’ll handle this to the best person in the team and I’ll guide the team offline whenever necessary.”
“Perfect, Khushi.” Rudra’s face lights up. “You have no idea how much happy that makes me.”
Happy?Am I happy stepping back from this project which had been motivating me to work harder and effectively from past so many months? I don’t think so. Somewhere I know only I am the one who can bring justice to this project and win everything over the AR group for my company. But I have to back off. Why am I backing out now? Am I doing this only to stay away from Aarav so that I can focus solely on Rudra henceforth or am I doing this because I don’t want to see Aarav blaming me for ruining his business? God! What is wrong with my head? Everything that I am thinking and doing, I connect it only with Aarav Raichand. This has to stop. My mind is going insane.
***************
Three days and the scratching on my finger hasn’t stopped. I don’t know what’s wrong again, but since the time I have worn this finger ring, I have had a bad itching and it’s weird.Hold on.I bought this ring online for the engagement. Did I miss something? I quickly open the same link I brought this ring from and check its details. The last time I surfed, it was during my return flight from Bangalore where I didn’t read out the exact details and now when I read this ring has a mixture of gold too, my eyes pop out. How could I miss this before? Is that why I am getting this itching from past few days? I take off the ring and see a small bruise around my finger. What is that supposed to mean? The last time I wore a gold chain in Bangalore I got a similar bruise on my neck which took a few days to go. Aarav had warned me it’s because Jhanvi is allergic to gold and according to him, I am his wife, Jhanvi so I had to be cautious. But when Rudra told me there were chances Aarav was making all this up and must have done something on that chain to get those bruises on my neck, I had believed that possibility because Aarav was around me all the time in Bangalore. But now that I am wearing this ring, which he has nothing to do with and getting similar bruises on my finger makes me partly believe whatever Aarav had tried to warn me about from so many days was true.
No. I am overthinking. I push the ring away and gulp some water.I could be Jhanvi?Suddenly that thought churns my stomach. I can’t sit and wait for this confusion to drown me. It’s high time I dig for the truth too. I pick up my phone and ask my secretary to make an appointment with the best dermatologist in this city.
The next day I meet the dermatologist and share my issue with him. He affirms it’s a gold allergy. I am appalled at his findings.
“Is it possible that I never had this allergy before and it happened recently to me?”
The answer to this question is very important which is why I wait with bated breath for the doctor to respond.
“Khushi, such allergies are contracted from the very beginning of your age means you always were allergic to gold and might have shown symptoms before as well. It’s not possible that you developed it recently.”
Damn hell! I was wearing lots of gold in the pictures Sakshi had shown me of our friend’s wedding and it is impossible that despite wearing so much gold then, I never got any symptoms. Does it mean the woman in those pictures was real Khushi Thakur who had no issues unlike me because I am…I am Jhanvi?
This one appointment with the dermatologist has shaken my world. Even in the rarest possible way, I cannot imagine I have been living someone else’s life in the last two years. Though I don’t wear the ring again on my finger, I decide not to share this yet with Rudra. I need more time to process this and also find more hints if any of this is true.
*****************
I wonder if Aarav has got to know I’ve left working on the AR Group project and someone else is now handling it for Rudra? Strangely he has neither stalked me after our forced kiss in his office nor has he shown any interest to contact me. Where is he?
“We are here,” Rudra’s voice breaks my trance. He parks the vehicle in front of a shopping mall.
“Shopping Mall?”
“Uh huh,” he smiles. “It’s been a long time since I gave you anything.”
